Gymnothorax Tile Salinity

[ghostknife]

Hi all,

I work in an aquatics store near me and a customer brought in a 'freshwater' moray eel. And another member of staff said we could house it, as they didnt know (until i told them) that they prefer Brackish.

Its currently living in freshwater

However i am unsure what salinity they require? Also what brackish fish could i keep with him? (i am bringing him home when i set my tank up)

I was thinking archer fish? would that work?

Thanks

 

[nmonks]

Juveniles will be fine around SG 1.005 at 25 C, but adults need 1.010 at 25 C upwards. They're untrustworthy additions to community systems, so be careful. In theory, two of the three traded archerfish would be fine, Toxotes chatareus and Toxotes jaculatrix. But the equally widely traded archerfish Toxotes microlepis prefers freshwater and low-end brackish conditions and would be too small when fully grown to be safe with a predatory species like this moray.

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/Projects/FAQ/4f.html
http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/Projects/FAQ/3c.html

Cheers, Neale

 

[tsi431]

For feeding, I feed mine half of a shell on frozen shrimp (51-60ct) from the grocery store, just thawed out in vitamin water. Just so you know, mine has doubled in size in about a month (now about 18") after going from freshwater(lfs) to my brackish (1.010).

 

[nmonks]

Shrimp is fine once or twice a week, but shouldn't be a major part of their diet. Moray eels are very prone to thiamin deficiency, and you need to avoid foods with high thiaminase content, i.e., foods like shrimp, mussels and some squid. Much better to concentrate on foods without thiaminase, e.g., tilapia, cockles, flounder. Do read also Marco Lichtenberger's piece on thiaminase over at Wetwebmedia.com.

Cheers, Neale

For feeding, I feed mine half of a shell on frozen shrimp (51-60ct) from the grocery store, just thawed out in vitamin water. Just so you know, mine has doubled in size in about a month (now about 18") after going from freshwater(lfs) to my brackish (1.010).

 

[tsi431]

Neale,
I was under the impression that marine shrimp did not have thiaminase in them, per wetwebmedia. I assumed the shrimp I bought are marine shrimp. The website says that tiger prawns do have thiaminase, but I thought they and marine shrimp were different.

Can you please clarify? I don't want to kill my moray's.

Thanks,

Travis

 

[simonas]

I kept my G tiles in quite high salinity bout 1.016 with my toadfish, the morays looked more attractive and seemed to do well at this level

 

[nmonks]

Unless expressly stated otherwise for a particular shrimp species, assume it contains thiaminase. The "Marine shrimps (sp. indet.; Hawaii)" simply means that one unnamed species collected from Hawaii didn't contain thiaminase in the review Marco read. Such shrimps are the minority; most shrimps seem to contain thiaminase. As Marco says towards the end: "Avoid feeding exclusively frozen bivalves or shrimps, because these potentially have very high thiaminase content."

http/www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/thiaminase.htm

Tilapia is thiaminase free as far as I can establish, and is so cheap and easy to obtain it makes an excellent alternative.

Cheers, Neale

I was under the impression that marine shrimp did not have thiaminase in them, per wetwebmedia. I assumed the shrimp I bought are marine shrimp. The website says that tiger prawns do have thiaminase, but I thought they and marine shrimp were different.

 

[Brackishgirl]

I bought mine thinking that it was a freshwater. After research because he wouldn't eat, I found out he was brackish. I keep mine in a sg of 1.011, but as they mature they can be full marine. They need lots of hiding places, and perfer a sand substrate. In my tank, I keep a ruby scat, a tiger dat, ghost shrimp and guppies (meant to be food, but are part of the community now). Some fish that can survive in a brackish tank are scats, dats, monos, archers,and mollies. I feed mine a variety of food, he/she now eats like crazy and loves hand fed krill, live ghost shrimp, blood worms(this is rare), and columbian catfish.